Other Thoughts

THE MEANING OF THE GOSPEL"

We may venture to say that the Gospel is the first fruits of all the
Scriptures."

Origen gives an extensive survey of the "Gospel" as he
understands, in the first part of Book One of his Commentary on John. The Gospel is
good news about Jesus, first and foremost. Not only a recital of what he said and did,
though this, too, is "gospel," but also it presents Jesus Christ so that
we may attain Him. The supreme significance of "Gospel" is good news about Jesus
Himself as a Person. "We must say that the good things the Apostles announce in
this Gospel are simply Jesus."

To be sure, the good news has specific and varied content. "One
good thing is life: but Jesus is the Life. Another good thing is the Light of the world,
when it is true Light, and the light of men: and all these things the Son of God is said
to be." The same may be said of the Truth, or the Way that leads to Truth, the
Door, or the Resurrection. "All these things the Savior teaches that He is."

The Savior, when He sojourned with men and caused the Gospel to appear
in bodily form, caused all things to appear as gospel (good tidings)."

Origen, however, prefers to hold that "all the New Testament
ought to be called the Gospel." Every page of it has the sweet odor of the
presence of Jesus, and "it also contains many praises of Him and many of His
teachings, on whose account the Gospel is a gospel."

WITNESSING TO CHRIST

Christians used to witness to Christ even in the public places of the
towns. Celsus complained of the spread of the faith by these means, "We see that
those who display their trickery in the market places and go about begging would never
enter a gathering of intelligent men, nor would they dare to reveal their noble beliefs in
their presence: but whenever they see adolescent boys and a crowd of slaves and a company
of fools, they push themselves in and show off."

This was an accusation that hurt Origen very much. How could anyone
call "reading of the Bible, and explanations of the reading" together with
"exhortation to goodness" trickery?

And as for the claim that only the ignorant were attracted by
Christianity presented in this guise, Origen indignantly and lengthily denies it.
Christianity is the true philosophy, and market place evangelism is one perfectly proper
way for an educated Christian to disseminate it.

Origen refers to men of this sort when he replies to Celsus: "Christians
do all in their power to spread the faith all over the world. Some of them accordingly
make it the business of their life to wander not only from city to city but from town to
town and village to village in order to win fresh converts for the Lord." From
being motivated by selfish considerations, "they often refuse to accept the bare
necessities of life; even if necessity drives them to accept a gift on occasion, they are
content with getting their most pressing needs satisfied, although many people are willing
to give them much more than that. And if at the present day, owing to the large number of
people who are converted, some rich men of good position and delicate high-born women give
hospitality to the messengers of the faith, will anyone venture to assert that some of the
latter preach the Christian faith merely for the sake of being honored? In the early days
when great peril threatened the preachers of the faith in particular, such a suspicion
could not easily have been entertained; and even at the present day the discredit with
which Christians are assailed by unbelievers outweighs any honor that some of their
fellow-believers show them.

Their aim was throughout pastoral and evangelistic; that is why they
adapted their message to the capabilities of the hearers. "We confess that we do
want to educate all men with the Word of God, even if Celsus does not wish to believe it"
was Origens proud boast, and he carried it out. In addition to his Christian pupils
in the school at Alexandria, he had pagan hearers to whom he gave instruction in the
faith. Indeed, Julia Mamaea, the queen-mother, heard him lecture. It would be a mistake to
think that the apologists and theologians were anything less than evangelists. The
objective of their lives was to bring men of all sorts and intellectual abilities to the
truth about God, man and the universe as it was revealed in Jesus Christ.

ADAM

Origen believes that Adam, as the father of mankind attained salvation
through the Cross of Christ. He refers to a tradition that Adam was buried in the same
place that Christ was crucified, and in that place "found resurrection through the
resurrection of the Savior... For it was unfitting that while the many sprung from him
should receive remission of sins and the blessing of resurrection, he-the father of
mankind-should not all the more attain to grace of this kind."

Origen believes that Adam was a prophet.

And among the prophets Adam too is reckoned to have
prophesied the great mystery in Christ and in the Church, when he said: For this cause a
man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be
two in one flesh. It is clearly with reference to these words of his that the Apostle says
that this is a great mystery, but I speak in Christ and in the Church.

JOHN THE BAPTIST

1. The word "John" in Hebrew means "God is
merciful;" Origen says that it means "the grace of God."

"John" means "the grace of God". Hence when
Zachariah wrote on the tablet that the name was John, immediately his mouth was opened by
the grace of God...and his tongue, no longer bound by unbelief, was restored to him.

2. St. John is the voice, while our Lord Jesus Christ is
the Speech. How great is the difference between a voice and Speech?!

Now we know voice and speech to be different things. The voice can
be produced without any meaning and with no speech in it, and similarly speech can be
reported to the mind without voice, as when we make mental excursions, within ourselves.
And thus the Savior is, in one view of Him, Speech, and John differs from Him; for as the
Savior is Speech, John is voice.

John himself invites me to take this view of him, for to those who
asked who he was, he answered. "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness,
Prepare the way of the Lord! make His paths straight!"

This explains, perhaps, how it was that Zachary lost his voice at the
birth of the voice which points out the Word of God, and only recovered it when the voice,
forerunner of the Word, was born.

A voice must be perceived with the ears if the mind is afterwards to
receive the speech which the voice indicates. Hence, John is, in point of his birth, a
little older than Christ, for our voice comes to us before our speech. But John also
points to Christ; for speech is brought forward by the voice. And Christ is baptized by
John, though John declares himself to have need to be baptized by Christ; for with men
speech is purified by voice, though the natural way is that speech should purify the voice
which indicates it. In a word, when John points out Christ, it is man pointing out God,
the Savior incorporeal, the voice pointing out the Word.

3. The baptism of St. John prepared the way to the baptism of our Lord
Jesus Christ.

John has a right and duty to baptize even though he is not the promised
Messiah because his humble baptism in water is a necessary preparation for the spiritual
baptism of the Messiah who is to come.

John (the Baptist) "turned many of the sons of Israel to the Lord
their God",... but our Lord Jesus Christ enlightened everyone to the knowledge of the
truth, for that is His work.

4. St. John the Baptist knew our Lord, even while he was in his
mothers womb, but his knowledge was not perfect till He was baptized.

He knew Him from his mother's womb, but not all about Him. He did
not know perhaps that this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire, when he
saw the Spirit descending.

5. Origen believes that the spirit and power of Elijah the Prophet -
not the soul - were in St. John the Baptist.

I have thought it necessary to dwell some time on the examination of
the doctrine of transmigration, because of the suspicion of some who suppose that the soul
under consideration was the same in Elijah and in John, being called in the former case
Elijah, and in the second case John...

The soul of John being in no wise Elijah.

For in truth, while many prophets are his equal, none is his superior
in the (measure of) grace given unto him. (John the Baptist speaks): I have
attained to so great grace as to be deemed worthy of the prophecy which foretold of my
life on earth in the words "I am the voice of one crying..." and "Behold I
send my messenger..." (When Mary conceived she stayed with Elizabeth)
when the one child who was being formed [the unborn Jesus] graciously bestowed on
the other [John] with some exactness His own likeness, and caused him to be conformed to
His glory. That is why later John was supposed to be Christ, from the similarity of
appearance, and Jesus was thought to be John raised from the dead, by those who were not
capable of distinguishing the image from its own likeness.

THE SAINTS

1. The saints, for Origen, are all spiritual persons, living and
dead. Such people have the power to intercede with God for us and to obtain for us
the forgiveness of our sins.

When Origen speaks of prayer to the saints, he meant requesting the
prayers of fellow Christians, and these which are offered to the departed saints. In fact,
the departed saints may be better able to intercede for us than our fellow Christians
since they have obtained fullness of knowledge and are no longer hindered by bodily
passions.

Since the saints at rest are still members of the body of Christ, in
which all members care for each other, we may safely presume that they take an interest in
our needs.

And as knowledge is revealed to the saints now through a glass in a
dark manner, but then face to face, so it would be unreasonable not to employ the analogy
for all the other virtues also, which if prepared already in this life will be perfected
in the next. Now the one great virtue according to the Word of God is love of one's
neighbor. We must believe that the saints who have died have this love in a far greater
degree towards them that are engaged n the combat of life, than those who are still
subject to human weakness and are engaged in the combat along with their weaker brethren.
The saying: if one member suffer any thing, all the members suffer with it, or if one
member glory, all the members rejoice with it, does not apply only to those who here on
earth love their brethren For one can quite properly say also of the love of those who
have quit this present life: ... the solicitude for all the churches. Who is weak, and I
am not weak? Who is scandalized, and I am not on fire?

Origen believes that the two and half tribes who passed the Jordan to
fight with other tribes till the end, and returned to their inherited land in the eastern
side of the Jordan refers to the departed members of the Church who struggle with us by
praying till all of us will inherit.

Origen often speaks of their intercession with God, starting from two
texts of the Old Testament: the dead Samuel prophesies for Saul at the house of the witch
of Endor and of Jeremiah it is written: He who is the friend of his brethren and
prays much for the people and for the whole holy city, Jeremiah, the prophet of God.
Origen cites these two examples several times to show that the saints in heaven do not
remain idle, but are full of charity for their brethren still in this world, whom they
help with their prayers and intercessions.

Several texts emphasize the intervention of the martyrs, co-redeemers
with Christ, on behalf of their brethren. The saints of the Old Testament also go before
us in the front rank in our battles with the evil powers.

The joy of Christ and the saints will not be complete until the whole
Body is reconstituted in the heavenly Jerusalem.

2. Origen states that saints have their own sins. Ernest Latko says,

In commenting on the name saints as applied to the people of
God, Origen, in one of his Homilies on the Book of Numbers, reminds us that because
they are saints they are not necessarily exempt from sin. Their holiness is not absolute;
it is relative and consists in a consecration of their lives to God, Who in His goodness
preserves them from the gravest faults.

Those who are not saints die in their sins; but those who are saints
do penance for their sins, put up with their wounds, understand their faults, and so they
search out the priest, and ask for a cure; they look forward to a purification through the
bishop. That is why therefore the word of the law cautiously and with significance states
that the bishops and priests receive the sins not of anyone, but of the saints alone; for
he is a saint who attends to his sin through the bishop.

A SAINTLY LIFE

Therefore, "be holy, says the Lord, even as I am holy"
(Lev. 20:7). What does it mean "even as I am holy"? Just as, it says, I am set
apart and separated at a distance from everything that is praised or worshipped either on
earth or in heaven; just as I surpass every creature and I am set apart from everything
which I have made; so also you be set apart from all those who are not holy nor dedicated
to God...

Finally this same word which is called hagios in the Greek language
signifies that it is something outside the earth.

But if you wish to recall some other of the saints, the word of
Scripture replies to you, saying, "There is no man upon the earth who does good and
sins not" (Eccl. 7:20). Therefore, only Jesus rightly "has perfect hands";
who alone "does not sin" (1 Pet. 2:22), that is, who has perfect and whole works
of his hands.

A COMPARISON BETWEEN SINNERS AND SAINTS

With regards to the fact that he ordered "to shave off all
his hair"(Cf. Lev. 14:9), I think that each work of death placed in the soul which
originated in sin is ordered to be cast away-for now they are called the hairs. For it is
preferable for the sinner to set right everything that is born in him either in council or
in word or in deed if he truly wants to be cleansed, to remove it and cast it off and not
allow anything to remain. But the saint ought to preserve every hair, and if possible,
"a razor" ought not "pass over his head" that he be not able to cut
off anything from his wise thoughts either in words or deeds. Whence, of course, it is
that "a razor" is said 'not to have passed over the head" of Samuel (1 Sam.
1:11); but also from all the Nazarenes, (Cf. Num. 6.5) who are the just because of the
just it has been written, "whatever he does will prosper, and his leaves will not
fall" (Cf. Ps. 1:3). Whence also, "the hairs of the head" of the Lord's
disciples also are said "to be numbered" (Cf. Matt. 10:30), that is , all their
acts, all their words, all their thoughts are kept before the Lord because they are just,
because they are holy. But every work, every word, every thought of a sinner ought to be
cut off. And this is what is meant: "That every hair of his body is shaved off and
then he will be clean" (Cf. Lev 14:9).

THE TRUE BEAUTY

He that has understood what is meant by the beauty of the bride
whom the Bridegroom, the Word of God, loves, that is to say, of the soul blooming with
beauty supercelestial and supramundane, will be ashamed to honor with the same term
"beauty" the bodily beauty of women or child or man. The flesh is incapable of
real beauty, since it is all ugliness. For all flesh is as grass; and the glory thereof
(John 3:29), as seen in the reputed beauty of women and children, is compared by the
prophet to a flower: All flesh is as grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of the
field . ... The grass is withered and the flower is fallen; but the word of the Lord
endures forever (Isaiah 40:6-8).

NATURAL LAW

Origen used the familiar Stoic distinction between "the ultimate
law of nature" and "the written code of cities" to justify the Christian
refusal to obey the idolatrous laws of the nations, including Rome; he was
"apparently the first to justify the right to resist tyranny by appeal to natural
law." But the Christian acceptance of the pagan idea of natural law did not compel a
Christian theologian such as Origen to be oblivious of the relativity in the laws of the
nations.

Origen believes that all men partake of God:

I am of the opinion then, that the activity of the Father and the
Son is to be seen both in saints and in sinners, in rational men and in dumb animals, yes,
and even in lifeless things and in absolutely everything that exists; but the activity of
the Holy Spirit does not extend at all either to lifeless things, or to things that have
life but yet are dumb, nor is it to be found in those who, though rational, still lie in
wickedness (1 John 5:19) and are not wholly converted to better things. Only in those who
are already turning to better things and walking in the ways of Jesus Christ, that is, who
are engaged in good deeds and who abide in God (1 Cor. 4:17; Eph. 2:10; 1 John 4:13), is
the work of the Holy Spirit, I think, to be found.

That the activity of the Father and the Son is to be found both in
saints and in sinners is clear from the fact that all rational beings are partakers of the
word of God, that is, of reason, and so have implanted within them some seeds, as it were,
of wisdom and righteousness, which is Christ. And all things that exist derive their share
of being from him who truly exists, who said through Moses, I am that I am
(Exodus 3:14); which participation in God the Father extends to all, both righteous and
sinners, rational and irrational creatures and absolutely everything that exists.
Certainly the apostle Paul shows that all have a share in Christ, when he says, Say
not in your heart, who shall ascend into heaven? that is, to bring Christ down; or who
shall descend into the abyss? that is, to bring Christ back again from the dead. But what
says the scripture? The word is nigh you, even in your mouth and in your heart (Rom.
10:6-8). By this he indicates that Christ is in the heart of all men, in
virtue of His being the Word or Reason, by sharing in Which men are rational...

Again, the gospel teaches that no men are without communion with God,
when the Savior speaks as follows, The kingdom of God comes not with observation;
neither shall they say, Lo here! or, there! but the kingdom of God is within you
(Luke 17:20, 21).

If he [non-Christian] keep justice or preserve chastity, or maintain
prudence, temperance, and modesty; although he be alien from eternal life, because he does
not believe in Christ, and cannot enter the kingdom of heaven, because he has not been
born again of water and of the Spirit, still it seems, according to the Apostle's words,
that the glory and honor and peace of his good works cannot perish utterly.

Yet later in the same sermon he says:

I can scarcely persuade myself that there is any work which can
claim remuneration from God as a debt, since even the very ability to do, or think, or
speak, comes to us from the generous gift of God. How then can he be in debt to us, who
has first put us in his debt?

Without any derogation of the mission of the Savior, the Academy of
Alexandria discovered in every individual a sense of divine things and the hidden image of
God.

Part of our virtues we possess from our own resources, and we have
gained it through our own choice; the other part is from God-that is, if we have such
faith in the Savior and His Father as our free will allows: and for this we may have
recourse to Him as did Jesus disciples with their "increase our faith-where
"increase" implies that they were asking Him for God-given faith in addition to
what they had gained of their own choice. Paul expressly says the "in proportion to
our faith" (Rom 12:6) (i.e. the faith within us that is due to the exercise of our
own free will) "the gifts of the Spirit are bestowed". "To another is given
faith, by the same Spirit (1 Cor 12:9). If faith is given to a man in proportion to the
faith he already has, it is clear that the God-given faith comes alongside that which we
have achieved of our own resources. And so with the other virtues. Since then virtue is a
grace, since it makes its possessor a "favored one", it follows that the part
which comes from God comes alongside that already achieved by our own purpose; and this is
the meaning of "grace for grace" being given us by God.

THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

He begins with the statement that, since the creature has received his
being, he possesses the good in a manner that is limited, partial, and imperfect. In this
participation Origen will seek the cause of sin and evil, which, according to the
heretics, are caused by God. To refute this pessimism of theirs, let us begin by taking a
less lofty view of man and by estimating at its real value the immutable virtue which
adorns all the sages and wise men of this world. Their well-known perseverance is rendered
possible, first by Gods primary gift; then by wisdom, which undertakes the education
of the soul; and finally by the Holy Ghost, who makes the soul perfect.

It is wrong to think that the darkness vainly tries, like an active
substance, to overtake the light. On the contrary, it always disappears and ceases to
exist. In order that falsehood and imposture should be dispelled, is it not sufficient for
the light of truth to appear? However strange it may seem, the darkness must be far away
if it is to try to reach the light. The nearer it approaches the light, the more quickly
it is dissolved. We can say, then, that error has strength and movement within us only
when we are far removed from truth. Only then does it move forward to come to grips with
our understanding; and each time it approaches the enlightened intelligence, it shows its
own nothingness." In the wide sweep of this passage, written in the loftiest terms of
Alexandrian thought, we see the reflection of all the vital elements of the Academy over
which Origen presided: the rejection of Gnostic dualism, the high regard in which
intellectualism was held, and the glowing optimism based upon the feeling that the
religion revealed by Christ would be preached to all men.

On the one hand, he rejects the Gnostic theory, which makes evil an
alien substance, not created by God; on the other, he excludes the Stoic idea that evil is
only apparent. In his opinion, evil is certainly real, but it can be conducive to good and
it will eventually cease to exist. Hence the existence of evil is consistent with the
goodness of God. When God created the world, he knew that evil would one day come into it,
because where there are creatures endowed with freedom it is inevitable. If he did not
prevent it, the reasons were, first, that he has a sovereign respect for the freedom of
the will and, second, that he knew it would help the execution of his plan. As always,
Origen means this quite literally. There is no evil except in mens wills. The
sinners ill-will may have consequences both for the sinner himself and for other
people. This corresponds to the two sides of evil: in so far as evil acts against its
author, it is sin; in so far as its acts on others, it is suffering. But both may lead to
good. Sin is allowed to exist so that if men want to see what it is like, they may wallow
in it, and then, finding how bitter it tastes, grow weary of it and of their own accord go
back to the good. Experience of evil thus appears as the essential preliminary to the
recovery of the good by creatures possessing freewill.

Now to withdraw from the good is nothing else than to be immersed in
evil; for it is certain that to be evil means to be lacking in good. Hence it is that in
whatever degree one declines from the good, one descends into an equal degree of
wickedness. And so each mind, neglecting the good either more or less in proportion to its
own movements, was drawn to the opposite of good, which undoubtedly is evil.

As therefore God is fire and the angels a flame of
fire and the saints are all fervent in spirit so on the contrary those
who have fallen away from the love of God must undoubtedly be said to have cooled in their
affection for Him and to have become cold. For the Lord also says, Because iniquity
has multiplied, the love of the many shall grow cold. And further, all those things,
whatever they may be, which in the holy Scripture are likened to the adverse power, you
invariably find to be cold. For the devil is called a serpent and a
dragon, and what can be found colder than these?.

THE DOCTRINE OF ELECTION

The doctrine of election was important for Origen, especially in his
dealings with the Jews. His concern was twofold.

First, he wanted to show that the election of Gentiles, as taught by
the Church, was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible.

Second, he wanted to confirm this interpretation of the biblical
passages in question by reference to the history of the Jews and the Christian church
since the advent of Christ. De Lange argues that the second was the more important for
Origen.

MARIOLOGY

1. In speaking of "Virginity," we notice how Origen considers
St. Mary as the first virgin and the model of virgins.

2. Origen alludes to St. Mary as restoring the womankind the
honor it had lost through Eve's sin; in this way a woman "finds salvation in
child bearing" 1 Tim. 2:15. He says,

The joy trumpeted by Gabriel to Mary destroyed the sentence of
sorrow leveled by God against Eve.

Just as sin began with the woman and then reached the man, so too the
good tidings had their beginning with the women: Mary and Elizabeth.

"Blessed are you among women." For no woman has been or ever
can be a partaker in such grace. There has been but one divine conception, one divine
birth, one bearer of the God-man. (Mary reflects) Since I have been deemed
worthy of such great and wondrous grace from God... I above all women must glorify the One
who is working such miracles in me.

3. Origen interpreted the sword that would pierce St. Mary according to
Simeons prophecy (Luke 2:35) as doubts that would invade her on seeing her Son
crucified. He stated that, like all human beings, she needed redemption from her sins.

4. Origen speaks about the soul's maternity. St. Mary, as
the mother of God, represents the Church, whose members spiritually bear God in their
souls, Origen considered the spiritual life of Christians after baptism as the growth of
Christ Himself within their motherly souls.

Just as an infant is formed in the womb, so it seems to me that the
Word of God is in the heart of a soul, which has received the grace of baptism and
thereafter perceives within itself the word of faith ever more glorious and more plain.

It would be wrong to proclaim the incarnation of the Son of God from
the holy Virgin without admitting also His incarnation in the Church... Everyone of us
must, therefore, recognize His coming in the flesh by the pure Virgin, but at the same
time we must recognize His coming in the spirit of each one of us.

Hear this, O shepherds of the churches,

O shepherds of God.

All through time the angel comes down and announces to you that today
and every day

the Redeemer is born,

that is Christ the Lord!

NEW NAMES

In his work Peri Pascha, Origen refers to receiving new names
perhaps on baptism, as a sign of the new life in Jesus Christ. He gives many examples of
men whose names were changed by a divine call.

Those who have been made perfect have new names because they are no
longer the same but have become other than what they were.

SIGNS AND MIRACLES

Origen points out that, unlike magic, Christian miracles are always
wrought for the benefit of men, that they are done by men whose lives are exemplary, not
wicked, and by faith in the power of God, not of evil. No magical lore and sophisticated
training was necessary: indeed "it is, generally speaking, uneducated people who do
this kind of work" by means of prayer, reliance on the name of Jesus, and some brief
allusion to His story.For it was not the power of men, or their knowledge of the right
formulae which produced these cures, but "the power in the word of Christ."

When Celsus asserted that God did not will anything that was contrary
to nature, Origen countered with the teaching that whatever was done in accordance with
the will and word of God could not be contrary to nature; this applied especially to so
-called miracles. In his own exegesis of the miracle stories in the Bible, Origen seems to
have held to their literal factuality, while in Against Celsus and especially in On First
principles he argued at length that these stories were not to be taken as they stood, but
as mystical statements of spiritual truths.

And as they believe the signs and not in Him but in His name, Jesus
"did not trust Himself to them, because He knew all men, and needed not that any
should testify of man, because He knew what is in every man."

Next let us remark in what way, when asked in regard to one sign, that
He might show it from heaven, to the Pharisees and Sadducees who put the question, He
answers and says, "An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and there
shall be no sign given to it, but the sign of Jonah the prophet," when also, "He
left them and departed" (Matt. 17:4)...

Seek you also every sign in the Old Scriptures as indicative of some
passage in the New Scripture, and that which is named a sign in the New Covenant as
indicative of something either in the age about to be, or even in the subsequent
generations after that the sign has taken place.

THE CROSS

The crucifixion of Jesus has two sides.

The Son of God has been crucified in the body with a visible method,
while Satan was invisibly crucified, the apostle proclaims, "having wiped out the
handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has
taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the Cross" Col. 2:14.

Then, there is two meanings to the Cross of the Lord: the first is
mentioned by Peter the Apostle, "Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example
that you should follow His steps" 1 Pet 2:21. The other meaning presents the chaliee
of Christ's victory over Satan.

For it is impossible for a leper to be cleansed from sin without
"the wood" of the cross, unless he also has recourse to "the wood" on
which the Savior, as the Apostle Paul says, "despoiled the principalities and powers
triumphing over them on the wood"(Cf. Col. 2:15,14).

CASTING A LOT

The Apostle (Acts 1:23-26) explains that if we use it (the
casing of a lot) in absolute faith together with prayer, it reveals to men the hidden
will of God very clearly.

THE COMMANDMENT

Those who receive within themselves the greatness of the
commandment and its priority, realize this through three conditions:

a. with all their hearts, they hold steadfastly in themselves the
perfection of this love, its thoughts and its works.

b. with all their souls they be ready to sacrifice their own-selves on
behalf of the service of God who created everything, when there is a need for this for the
progress of His word. God is loved by the whole soul when there is no place of the soul
outside the faith.

CHRISTIANS AND THE STATE

None better than Christians fight for the Emperor, but we fight
"forming a special army," an army of piety, by offering our prayers to God.

MEN AND WOMEN

The Holy Scripture in fact does not differiate between men and women
according to their sex. For before Christ there is no difference among the two sexes, but
the difference is according to the heart which divides (the believers) into men and women.

How many women are considered as strong men before God?! And how
many men are considered as weak women?!

THE HONOR OF WOMEN

Before the birth of John, Elizabeth prophesied; and before the
birth of the Lord our Savior, Mary prophesied.

Thus it started with woman and reached to man, this salvation in the
world started with women who overcame the weakness of their sex.

GRACE OF PROPHECY

Thanks be to God, that although the grace of prophecy was
confined to Israel, now a still greater grace than all they had has been poured out on the
Gentiles through our Savior Jesus.

ABRAHAM, ISAAC, AND JACOB

This.. threefold division of divine philosophy (moral, natural,
contemplative) was, I think, privileged in [Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob].... For Abraham
shows forth, by his obedience, moral philosophy..., Isaac, who digs wells and searches the
mysteries of nature, represents natural philosophy..., Jacob is the contemplative, and was
named "Israel" because of his meditating on divine things (cf. his visions)....
Hence we are not surprised to find that these three blessed men built altars to God, i.e.
consecrated to Him the progress of their philosophy, that they might teach that these
things should come under the heading not of human arts but of Gods grace.

RACISM

The city of Alexandria lay on one of the frontiers of the Roman Empire.
Its great port was the gateway to the main roads of Syria. When the Christian citizen of
Alexandria looked out upon his immediate environment, he was faced with the problem of
different races trying to live together. The nationalities that were subject to the empire
of the Caesar remained unchanged by the culture and the laws of their conquerors. On the
contrary, they evinced a tendency to maintain their own national individualism, at least
to the point of reviving a number of their sacred traditions. How could the upholders of
Christianity maintain that there was no longer either Greek or barbarian, Roman or Jew?

He argued that every soul in the world is placed in the rank best
fitted for its capacity, and that in a forgotten past each souls freedom of will
either incited it to progress by imitation of God or reduced it to failure through
negligence. In this way he explained why a harmony exists between the inner life of the
rational being and the outer circumstances that move him to action. Divine providence
continues to regulate each soul according to its needs by preparing for it occasions or
circumstances which correspond to the variety of its movements or of its feelings and
purpose.

The equality of souls is demonstrated by the consummation common to all
of them. In the course of the spiritual struggle in which they are now engaged they never
lose the possibility of attaining it ultimately. The fact that brutal or perverted beings
exist in this world must not cast doubt on this truth. A single act of free will is
sufficient to manifest the immortal destiny of a savage and to show the kinship he enjoys
with the holiest spirits. In the unenlightened minds of rude and unlettered men as well as
in the minds of those who possess a refined feeling for things invisible, there is
revealed a mode of participation proper to all creatures whom God has endowed with
intelligence.